Kamloops has $1B in maintenance bills due — without $500M in new builds

Kamloops has around $1 billion in publicly-funded projects to plan over the next decade, and none of them include an arts centre nor a hockey arena.

If that was a shock to councillors, they didn’t express it.

It’s part of the city’s new strategy to tally everything it owns that needs replacing, along with new projects on the books, but Kamloops isn’t alone. All BC communities have to build out these asset management plans by 2030 and city hall staff checked in with cities across the province to study their notes.

“The thing that was clear to us: nobody has it dialled in,” the city’s asset manager Darren Crundwell told city council on Jan. 20.

The revised planning means cities are planning better for major growth or the lifespan of major facilities, like water treatment plants.

When plans fall short and major projects come as a surprise, taxpayers pay for it. It happened in Osoyoos, where the tax rate jumped by 24 per cent in just one year after projects were deferred for years.

In Kamloops, staff told council the plan currently includes 600 projects that account for around $1 billion in future spending over ten or more years. It’ll be rolled into the city budget for the first time in 2027, Crundwell said.

Speaking with iNFOnews.ca, he said not every project needs to be done within the next decade, and they could be sped up or deferred depending on the severity.

The goal, he said, is for both staff and the public to have a better sense of what’s coming over time in one plan.

“When we get to the point where the procedure is working well on our end and we can transparently roll it out to the public, then they’ll be able to see what the city’s planning 10, 20, 40 years out,” Crundwell said.

He added that Build Kamloops projects, like the arts centre and the new arena, are not included in the $1 billion figure. But he also said it’s not abnormal for the city to spend up to $100 million per year on major work like road and water utility projects.

Cities may not be eligible for certain grant funding if they don’t finalize the plan by 2030, according to a Kamloops staff report.

Coun. Nancy Bepple suggested some cities appear to get more provincial funding when there’s a “catastrophic failure” to infrastructure like water lines, while more prepared cities like Kamloops may get less because of a lack of short-term need. Crundwell said it may appear that way, but he expects more provincial laws to come into effect requiring cities to plan further ahead to avoid such emergencies.

Aside from the projects within the ongoing Kamloops plan, three upcoming new facilities are expected to cost more than a half-billion dollars.

Those include the downtown performing arts centre, a multiplex arena and a new RCMP station. Though the police station hasn’t been approved, it’s the one project city hall has no choice but to build as the RCMP could build it and send the bill to city hall if it’s deferred too long.